


Corollary

by prairiecrow



Series: Geometry [4]
Category: Knight Rider (1982), Torchwood
Genre: Cultural Differences, Desperation, Established Relationship, F/M, Ianto Loves Jack Even If Jack Does Not Love Him As Much In Return, Kissing, M/M, Oral Sex, POV Ianto Jones, Pansexual Character, Polyamorous Character, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 22:17:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1112164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto's always known that Jack Harkness will never be entirely his, and that he shares Jack's heart with at least two other people...</p><p>But when Jack looks at him with those warm eyes that are mostly blue but are also capable of shifting colour like the sea, and really sees him — all of him, the good and the evil, the light and the darkness, the best and the worst he has to offer — Ianto also knows that like Jack, he wouldn't have missed this for the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Corollary

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place the morning after the events of "Congruency".

_It's dead amazing, how much Ianto Jones has learned to read in the tiniest cues when it comes to Jack Harkness. When he enters his team leader's office first thing this morning with a fresh cup of hot coffee, Jack smiles as he reaches out a hand to take it — but there's a tightness in his face, a hollowness behind his welcoming expression and a deepening of the fine wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, that a casual observer wouldn't have noticed. Even Gwen, who loves him as much as she can, might have missed it…_

_But Ianto, who loves Jack entirely, certainly does not. "And how are we feeling this morning, Sir?"_

_"Never better," Jack responds promptly, and his smile gains a more genuine quality of cheerful mischief. "But I'll manage to feel even more amazing if you tell me you'll be free in about ten minutes."_

_Ianto glances at his wristwatch and mentally reviews his plans for the next half hour: it's currently 6:12, Tosh is due in at 6:45, he needs to fire up the latte machine and have the hot mug on her desk at 6:40, and he'd also intended to print up and distribute requisition requests to everybody's stations before she arrived. It's not like he hasn't got a full morning ahead of him dealing with the ongoing archiving nightmare in Storeroom 12-D, so he'd really rather not get things backed up this early, but —_

_— well, Jack. And a morning quickie. And Jack is still looking at him, one eyebrow on the rise in his patented blend of hopefulness and seduction, but there's stress underneath it all and Ianto can see that he's clearly in need of a few minutes of lusty distraction._

_So he replies, "I think that can be arranged," and the way Jack's face lights up makes it all worthwhile._  

*************************************************

Sometimes, very rarely, in the moment of sexual truth Jack has moaned a name against Ianto's skin that definitely hasn't started with the "Y" consonant — or begun to anyway, a savage cough of sound sharply bitten off. It used to be "G—!", but the latest occasion involved "K—!" instead, and Ianto was very careful to give absolutely no indication that he'd heard anything untoward when they collapsed together into a pool of their own heat and sweat and satisfaction, sharing each other's panting breath.

And it hadn't bothered him, really. Not much at any rate. Jack's a superb lover, easily good enough to make the occasional slip of the tongue well worth it… and besides, it's not like Ianto isn't well aware of the position he occupies in Jack's private world.

Still, he'd kept watch for almost half an hour afterwards, noting every trace of a drowsy smile that warmed Jack's sleeping face, and wondered who — or what — his fearless leader was dreaming about. 

*************************************************

_He spends two and a half minutes setting up the latte machine so it will be ready to go as soon as he gets round to it, then eight minutes printing up, collating and distributing the requisition forms. He makes the rounds of the desks quickly, depositing a small stack of paper neatly on each — in the left-hand corner, its edges perfectly parallel to and two inches away from the edges of the desk in question — and he saves Jack's desk for last._

_Jack is leaning back in his chair when Ianto walks in, thighs open wide and hands interlaced behind his head, grinning a grin as unrepentantly sexual as the visible bulge inside his trousers. His bracers are already off his shoulders, their careless fall around his thighs as arousing to Ianto now as that obvious swell of big mouth-watering cock: they're a visual alert that Jack is especially randy this morning, and manifestly impatient to get going._

_Regardless, Ianto has never believed in doing anything by halves. He crosses to Jack's side without haste, and he takes care that Jack's requisition form is placed just as precisely as the others. It's a measure of Jack's consideration for his sensibilities that he waits until Ianto has done so — just barely — before reaching out and grabbing what he wants, pulling Ianto down hard to sit in his lap._

*************************************************

One of Ianto's greatest personal strengths is that he's distinctly short on illusions. Okay, there'd been Lisa — he'd deluded himself to an Olympic level on that occasion — but on the whole? He's never been one to believe in fairy tales. Calm, reasonable, practical, level-headed: that's Ianto Jones, and it's why he's as fundamental a part of Torchwood Three as the bedrock the Hub rests upon.

It's probably also why Jack elected to pursue him sexually: Jack's excellent at reading people, and must have seen that Ianto was someone who wouldn't go spinning off into flights of romantic fantasy just because somebody wanted to sleep with him on occasion. And to be fair, Jack has never been anything less than honest with him about what was desired: a "little bit on the side" plus friendship, and although they've progressed to having an actual date from time to time Ianto isn't kidding himself about the nature of their relationship. 

He has no doubt that Jack is quite fond of him: the way Jack banters with him is openly affectionate, and the way Jack smiles at him when they have sex, hot and wolfish in the midst and shamelessly tender in the afterglow… no, he's sure that for Jack this isn't some casual hook-up, a convenient way to satisfy his robust physical appetites. But neither is it love in the conventional twenty-first century sense. Jack cares for the man he takes to his bed on a regular basis, but being Jack, and hailing from a different time and place, he doesn't categorize things into neat exclusive blocks: friend versus lover, polite interest versus all-consuming devotion, a binary system where things are either 'on' or 'off'. Jack functions on a much wider emotional continuum, or at least that's how it looks to Ianto, watching his enigmatic Captain from a vantage point so close and yet so far.

*************************************************

_On top of everything else, Jack is a spectacular kisser. It's almost enough to make Ianto overlook how intense he is this morning: so hungry, almost desperate, as if Ianto's mouth is an obstacle he has to devour to get through to… what, exactly?_

_Ianto isn't precisely certain, but he's within two guesses of the correct answer. It may well be that even Jack doesn't know — that he's simply ravenous, and if he can't have what he really wants he'll take whatever he can get._  

_And it's a measure of Ianto's practicality that when Jack guides him down off his lap and onto his knees between those strong taut thighs, Ianto goes willingly, pressing ardent kisses through cloth to the hardness that does not, in truth, burn for him alone._

************************************************* 

Sometimes he wants to ask outright, so say: "You can talk to me, Jack. You know how good I am at keeping secrets. Let me keep some for you: let me lessen your burden, even if only a little. Tell me how beautiful Gwen is, how her laughter lights you up inside, how you lie in bed at night and dream about her — I promise you, I'll listen. Tell me how KITT sets you on fire, how you cried when you thought he was dead and how you'd die yourself a hundred times over if it meant you could really touch him, just once — I swear to God, I won't judge you!"

But Jack, being Jack, played life like a game of poker with astronomical stakes: cards close to the vest, only the bare minimum of information revealed. And Ianto, being Ianto, firmly believed that certain wounds weren't meant to be opened — and that if they were, Jack would by no means thank the surgeon who'd made him bleed, even to lance a poison slowly consuming him from the inside out.

************************************************* 

_Ianto opens Jack up as Jack has taught him, skillfully and shamelessly. The sound Jack makes when Ianto takes him in his mouth in one smooth plunge is nearly pained, and hard fingers clench in Ianto's hair, holding him steady as Jack begins to rock slowly up and down — almost gentle, but it's plundering nonetheless._

_It feels and tastes amazing, sending a rush of answering sexual heat through him as he kneels in supplication, so Ianto spares only a passing thought to wonder exactly_ **_who_ ** _Jack wishes he was doing this to right now._

*************************************************

Jack does not love him, at least not the way Ianto wants him to.

Certainly not the way Ianto loves him. Not the way Jack deserves to be loved, by someone he loves just as deeply in return. And sometimes, watching Jack dance around the two people he wants so desperately but can't ever have — one warmly human, the other cooly artificial — Ianto's steadfast heart breaks and bleeds on his behalf… but silently, where Jack can never see.

Jack wouldn't appreciate the sympathy. Therefore Ianto will not commit the gross discourtesy of exposing him to it. Propriety is another skill he's always naturally possessed.

*************************************************

 _It doesn't matter._  

_Jack is doing this, sharing pleasure and intimacy and yearning, with him._ **_That's_ ** _what matters. This moment belongs to Ianto alone, no matter whose face haunts Jack's mind: Jack's body, thrilling to his touch._

*************************************************

Ianto's always known that Jack Harkness will never be exclusively his.

But when Jack looks at him with those warm eyes that are mostly blue but are also capable of shifting colour like the sea, and really _sees_ him — all of him, the good and the evil, the light and the darkness, the best and the worst he has to offer — Ianto also knows that like Jack, he wouldn't have missed this for the world.

*************************************************

_When Jack spills into his mouth — quick and hard, with a choked inarticulate gasp that is almost a sob — Ianto swallows it all assiduously, careful to pull off before the post-orgasmic sensitivity turns to pain. He bows his head over Jack's softening prick and inhales its scent of salt and musk, rubbing Jack's thighs in slow soothing circles and knowing, with an instinct cultivated over nearly twenty months of sexual interaction, that his lover wanted only this: a single swiftly achieved consummation just to take the edge off, whatever that edge might be. There'll be no rallying for a second round, even though he knows Jack is capable of two or three ejaculations at a go, and any number of non-ejaculatory orgasms besides._

_He's given Jack what was needed, and there's a satisfaction in that simple accomplishment that transcends the niceties of intricate sexual play, no matter how inventive._

_Jack runs slow fingers through his hair as he tucks Jack's still-quarter-hard cock back inside his underwear and trousers, and does up his fly neatly. He can hear Jack's smile in the timbre of his breathing, gradually flagging back to normal, and he's not surprised when Jack cups his face in both hands and tilts his head back to meet his gaze._

_He looks happier now, as if the world weighs less heavy on those broad shoulders, and for that mercy Ianto is so fiercely grateful that the force of it nearly brings tears to his eyes._

_He's not surprised when Jack raises him up, settles him back on his lap, and begins kissing him again lazily, one broad hand slipping down to palm Ianto's cock through his trousers, then start to set it free: Jack is as considerate a lover as he is skillful, and Jack will take care of him. He closes his eyes and leans into every kiss, pouring out his devotion with lips and tongue and quickening breath — and he can only hope that Jack apprehends it in full measure, even if it's never been wrapped up in words and offered between them as a formal gift._

_Jack takes care of his own, now and always. Ianto knows that as certainly as he knows that the sun has risen today, and will rise again tomorrow, and will mount the heights of Heaven every day for as long as love lasts — and if he is one among many who share this remarkable man's heart…_

_… well, that's a price of admission he's more than willing to pay._

THE END


End file.
